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Beefeater – what do you expect?

I’d normally give any chain of eateries with a name like Beefeater a very wide berth. About ten years ago I went with a group of friends to and Angus Steak House, and it was the vegetarian starvation zone you’d expect – with an attitude to match.

Today I was looking for somewhere to eat near Borough Green with Barry (a devout, but discriminating carnivore) and he was very keen to try the Beefeater. To be honest, there wasn’t any choice in the area and we’d been suck in the M25 traffic for what seemed like eternity and we had a lot of work ahead of us, so I went along with it.

As it turned out they didn’t have much that was pure veggie (a side order of chips?) but if you each cheese or fish you’d be okay. But at least they didn’t have the attitude.

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E7Even

I’ll try not to say “I told you so”, but e7even (aka e7broadband) has ceased providing any kind of service to its customers. Has it gone bust? No. It seems to have done a deal to let Mr Marrocco (186k) take over their customers – they won’t give the MAC to anyone else. For another ADSL provider to take over a line from another provider you need a MAC (Migration Authorisation Code) and guess what? E7even aren’t providing one of those either. It seems doubtful that the customers that paid up-front will be receiving a refund.

E7even was the cheapest ADSL provider by quite a large margin. When they launched their customers felt they had a bargain – it did work quite well. The rest of us figured out that they’d either be unable to provide proper backup at that price; had swung a fantastic wholesale deal; or had found a sure-fire way of going bust.

As time passed there were signs of disagreements and problems with E7even’s wholesale suppliers (yes, they had more than one) and the whole thing started to fall apart.

Now E7even’s customers are faced with either losing their service (their money already seems to have gone) or sign up with Mr Marrocco for a high-priced alternative. I’ve seen nothing to prove that 186k is capable of supporting retail ADSL users. As a company it’s seems to be going around with a pot of money and buying everything it can.

This story will, no doubt, roll on for some time to come.

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Flamin’ Forty!

Well that’s it – forty years old. I’ve just turned forty. This is pretty much half way, and I’ve never kept a diary. In fact, I’ve never had much to do with paper in any form – but technology has moved on.

An old colleague of mine from journalism days – David Brake – started a blog years ago and I thought it was a fun idea. So I’ve set this one up using the same software on the assumption that he knew what he was doing.